Invisible
by Starlit Skyline
Summary: Love. Something you can't see, or touch, or define by words. Set in chapter 45.


AN: Set in chapter 45, after Akira left Yukina to help Mami, but before Yukina met Hisame at the festival. First thing I ever wrote for a _shoujo_ manga, but I wanted to try out something new - so I hope it's okay. Yukina's pretty angst-y, you have been warned!

* * *

Invisible

Various expressions flutter over the faces of the crowd. Their voices and laughter mix together, creating a symphony - a cheerful tune - and among this festive joy, sits one Himuro Yukina - the Snow Woman.

Her sharp eyes seem dull as she surveys the people around her, like she doesn't really see them. Yukina sits away from the crowd, she prefers it that way.

Her cousin, Akira, had just ran off a few seconds ago, just before he could kiss her. For some reason, the fact didn't bother her that much.

There wasn't anything exciting about a kiss anymore, or a touch, or the sweet words he whispered to her. There was no longing now that he was absent either.

Another piece of her had run off somewhere, and she let it.

Love was a strange thing - a thing Yukina doesn't understand, but she needs it to finish her cellphone novel. That was the entire reason she exposed herself to it again.

She's tired of getting hurt.

She'd always been competitive, because she wanted people to look at her - look at her a see something _good,_ something worthwhile. Yet she was too afraid of the flaws they might see if they looked, their harsh critics and jabs. That's how Yupina was born - because when people read her work they see her as the cellphone novelist, the story-maker, an author that wrote something they liked - and not the glaring, silent girl who gave everyone the creeps, the _Absolute Zero Snow Woman_.

Her inspiration has all but vanished. Lilia's heart of ice seems to have thickened even more, and Yukina's beginning to wonder if anyone can melt it at all.

Her hands feel cold. There's an icy lump in her chest. Her tears seem to have frozen too.

She wonders what Shigure's doing right now, how much he hates her. She's used to being hated. She knows just how different she is from the rest.

Her skin is too cold, so no one likes getting too close to her. Her all-seeing eyes pierce everyone she looks at, trying to figure out what they're thinking. How does their mind work? Why do they reject her?

"You better fix that glare..."

She'd almost forgotten those words, but the voice seems to follow her everywhere she goes. There's no one to make her forget this time.

She knows that her eyes are too sharp, too piercing - they're horrible.

Yukina hides behind thin lenses encased in plastic, a see-through barrier that still manages to somehow ward of the cruel words of her classmates. She hates it when people judge her - her hair, her appearance, her attitude and especially her eyes. She hates it, but when she wore her glasses, it was like wearing a mask. No one saw her real face. Only Akira ever got glimpses of it.

Only Akira... and Shigure.

"You're cute."

Her mask slips, from time to time. Shigure always knew how to rile her up enough for her to let that happen. But, then again, his did too.

Yukina covers her ears and feels like she might cry again. That was the first time anyone, other than Akira or her parents, had told her that.

She never thought of herself as pretty, let alone cute. How can you call someone with such a hateful expression cute? Love really was blind.

Love, she still doesn't understand it - could she ever?

This throbbing in her chest, this emptiness in her heart - is that love? The sugar-coated words that make her blush, wanting to be with a person once they were gone, a teasing touch just so he could laugh at her reaction - did those things equal love?

Could she define love at all?

It was the thing that made her cry, wasn't it? The thing that always seemed so nice but always hurt so badly in the end.

Her first love ended in trauma - because of that stupid glare of hers. She couldn't change the look in her eyes, no matter how much people found her stare unsettling.

At least they don't watch her, they don't see her weaknesses, she's grateful for that, at least. No one took the time to look - really look at her and see Himuro Yukina instead of the aloof Snow Woman.

She'd never thought she could ever miss those days when only Akira chose to talk to her, when he was still just her sweet, harmless cousin Akira.

She never realized how much she missed that Akira.

Love complicated things too much. Love triangles were usually interesting things in a plot, something that made the readers beg for more, for one love to be stronger than the other.

She'd never imagined Shigure could reintroduce her to love, but he also reintroduced her to the hurt that always followed it.

She doesn't blame Shigure for hating her.

Sometimes, she wishes no one had seen her at all.

Please Review!


End file.
